


lavender

by ssstrychnine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bathtubs, F/M, First Kiss, Post-Battle, Sharing a Bed, after the battle removing armour and taking baths and sleeping.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 04:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: jaime helps brienne with her armour. brienne takes a bath. they share a bed.





	lavender

After the battle, Brienne goes to her room as soon as she is able. There is too much smoke in the air everywhere else. Too much blood. She is sure the smell of it will linger in her hair and under her skin for weeks. So she goes to her room and then she leaves it again, but only to drag buckets of hot water up from the bathhouse, to fill the tub she’s been graciously given by Sansa Stark.

"A lady should have a private bath," she'd said. “A lady knight, even more so.” The tone of her voice had allowed no room for arguments.

So Brienne fills her tub and scents the water with dried lavender from a pouch, also given to her by Sansa, and then she sits at the end of her bed and pulls off her gauntlets and finds she cannot move. Everything smells of rust and blood and cold. And lavender under it all. Her hands are pinched and red at the knuckles, stiff with the memory of her sword. It had seemed endless. At the beginning, there had been shouting, battle cries and calls for courage, but after awhile it had all become grimly quiet. She leans over to unlace her boots and pulls them off and sets them neatly on the floor.

She’s not entirely surprised when there is a knock on the door. She had left quickly and there are people who take note of that now, sometimes. It will be Pod, offering to help her take off her armour, but she will refuse. It will be Tormund, come to beg her presence at his table, among his remaining men, but she will refuse. It will be Jaime, the most confusing of all of them, come to... she’s not sure what, but she’ll refuse that too. She closes her eyes, just for an instant, and then she crosses the room and opens the door.

It  _is_ Jaime, with wet hair and clean skin and soft clothing. The only sign of any of what they’ve been through is a cut across his brow, like a gravel burn, greyed cold at the edges, and his face, which is drawn and tired. He is wearing his wooden hand. His sleeve covers everything but the fingertips.

“I thought-” He stops, licks his lips, squares his jaw. "I thought you might want company."

Brienne surprises herself by stepping back to let him in. She closes the door behind them and sits back down on the bed. Her limbs feel strangely numb and she thinks that if she takes off her armour, she might see something she hadn’t noticed. A broken bone or a blade, broken off under her ribs. She massages the feeling back into her hands and watches Jaime as he circles the room. He touches everything, books and tapestries and other things that aren’t hers, and then he picks up one of her discarded gauntlets and measures the metal fingers against his wooden ones and laughs.

“I’ve interrupted your bath,” he says, dropping the glove back onto the bed.

“Yes,” says Brienne. “But it’s alright.”

“The water will get cold.” He dips his flesh hand into the bath, wrinkles his nose, shakes it off.

“Yes,” says Brienne again. She doesn’t move. She can still feel corpses under her feet. They’d had to step over so many people to get back inside the walls.

“Shall I help with your armour?”

“I-” Brienne stops, licks her lips, squares her jaw. “Yes,” she says. “Thank you.”

She stands up and Jaime comes to stand beside her. He doesn’t say anything more, just takes her arm and turns it, to get at the straps that hold the plate in place. She watches him, holding her still with his wooden hand and unbuckling the leather with the other, and then she sighs and takes off her empty sword belt herself, and lays it on the bed.

Jaime is delicate with her armour. He hums under his breath as he unlaces the shoulder pieces from where they’re tied to the top of the breastplate, and he places every piece on the bed, alongside what she’s put there. She realises, as he fumbles with buckles and ties, that he must have help, always, every time he arms himself, and she decides that she will offer him her hands, whenever he wants them, when they leave Winterfell. 

Her breast and back plates come next, Jaime’s knuckles brushing her jaw as he unbuckles the straps at her shoulders, his other hand at her waist. Brienne helps with the other side, so she’s not thrown off balance by the loss of weight. Everything smells of metal, of sweat, of blood, but Jaime doesn’t say anything. Brienne shuts her eyes and sees the blue of death and the red of fire, and so she opens them again to see him.

“Are you okay?” she asks, wanting to hear something more than his humming and the movement of leather and steel. “Were you injured?”

“Bruised almost everywhere,” he says. “A nasty cut at across my thigh, but Lady Stark sent someone to stitch it.”

“We were lucky,” murmurs Brienne. “I’m... I’m afraid there’s something under all this that I’ve not felt.”

“No,” says Jaime, pausing in front of her, the last of the plate safely on the bed. “Nothing touched you.”

“That’s not true, there-”

“You’ll be black and blue, but nothing worse.” He raises his hand, like he might touch her face, and then drops it to his side again. “There’s a cut on your cheek, but it’s not bad, did you know?”

“I haven’t got a mirror.” She can feel it now though, a dull sting along the line of one of her cheekbones. She touches it with the back of her hand and it comes away red and black with blood and dirt. “I should bathe.”

“Yes,” says Jaime. “Well, I’m... you’re...” His mouth twists and he takes a step backwards and Brienne bites hard at the inside of her cheek. It feels strange suddenly, that he should leave, that he should be away from her at all. They had hardly left one another’s side during the battle. She had not wanted to.  

“Stay,” she says, glad for the cut on her cheek and the dirt on her face, as she can feel herself blushing under it. Stupid to blush, after everything they’ve been through together, but welcome too, that she can blush at all.

“Are we taking another bath together?” Jaime asks. “I  _so_  liked the last.”

Brienne rolls her eyes. “Be quiet,” she mutters, half under her breath, and the burning at her cheeks fades.

She turns away from him and starts on the rest of her clothing. He doesn’t say anything, but she can feel it when he starts to walk around the room again, to touch things again no doubt, to move things from where they should be. She ignores him and starts to unlace the leather brigandine she wears under her armour. He starts to move the pieces of plate from her bed to the stand she hangs it on and she ignores that too. Under the brigandine is a padded shirt and trousers, and under that, linen and leggings. She pauses for only a moment before removing those too. He’s seen her body before, so many winters ago now, and she’s too sore and too cold to care. Naked, she trots across the room to the bath and steps up and into it, quickly, and he does laugh at that, and she settles in the water to scowl at him, her knees pulled to her chest.

“Just like old times,” he says.

“I might ask you to leave after all,” she says, and he laughs again.

The water hasn’t cooled yet, and the heat bites at many cuts and bruises she can’t see. Her knees are dirty and her thighs are blue and yellow and her waist has a strange pattern of cuts, where the rivets of her brigandine have been driven through the rest of her clothing, and into her flesh. The scar at her collarbone, where the bear caught her with its claws, has split. The room smells of lavender more than of blood now though. She splashes water on her face, then shifts back awkwardly, to wet her hair. The water dirties quickly, but she doesn’t care, the warmth bleeds the pain from her muscles and her head and her heart. She sighs, leans back against the edge, shuts her eyes and sees nothing but grey.

“Are you wounded?” Jaime asks, some time later, and she opens her eyes to squint at him. He is sitting beside the bath now, facing her, his arm against the rim, his fingertips just barely touching the water. She thinks, a little giddily, that she must have fallen asleep, to have missed him moving there.

“No,” she says, quietly. “Bruises and scrapes.” She can feel her body better in the water, everything in its place. She doesn’t know how it’s possible that they survived at all.

“And your squire, Podrick, is he...”

“He’s fine. He fought well.”

“He had a good teacher.”

Brienne shrugs, awkwardly, and then rubs at her arms with her hands. The water has cooled somewhat, and it’s close to uncomfortable. There will be a warm stone under the mattress of her bed, and there are several wool quilts on top, and a sheep skin. Jaime is watching her and he seems less tired than he had when she first let him in, and less scared. 

“Could you bring me the robe hanging by the door?” she asks, and he does. It’s soft blue wool, given to her by Pod when she was knighted, though she didn’t think she’d ever have a chance to wear it. 

She stands up, wrings the water from her hair, takes the robe from Jaime and puts it on. He watches her face, her hands, the tied cord at her waist. 

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks, something more than the words in his question, like asking if she wants to fight a battle with him. Like asking if she wants to fight death with him.

“No,” she says, unable to meet his eyes. “You can stay.” 

She blows out all but one of the lanterns and then she sits at the head of her bed. Jaime joins her and when she asks if he sleeps with the wooden hand, he merely holds it out for her to remove. It’s held against his flesh with leather lacings and a cuff, tied tightly. She takes her time, loosening it first, her touch careful against scar tissue and against his pulse, and then she pulls it away. She places the piece of leather and wood on the table by the bed. Though the wound has healed fully, it is red where the leather wears, and the scar is an ugly fold of skin. There is colour at the high points of Jaime’s cheeks, and he is looking everywhere but her. Brienne smiles at him.

“Don’t be modest,” she murmurs. “It is a fearsome scar.” 

“Jealousy is unbecoming,” he replies, but then he laughs and shrugs and settles back against the cushions.

Gradually, as their exhaustion gets the better of them, they move from sitting to lying down. Over the covers, but kept warm by the stones under the mattress, that keep the heat well. They talk about what might happen next, about Jaime’s sister and the army she has gathered, about what Winterfell and the dragon queen have left. They will die or they won’t. Jaime seems convinced that he’s on borrowed time and Brienne can’t convince him otherwise. He is a golden knight, but not invulnerable, just like she is a lady knight, and at risk because of it.

"The girl,” Brienne murmurs, close to sleep. “The little Lady Mormont, and Arya Stark and Lady Sansa, they all fought too. They say that even the Targaryen queen drew a sword." She runs her palm along the quilt, pushing out the wrinkles in the fabric. It’s grey, embroidered with the small yellow flowers that grow in the snow, like buttercups.   

"Don't worry,” says Jaime, “you were the first."

"That's not-"

"I know." He touches the back of her hand and she doesn't blush or flinch or pull away. "All of them look to you, though."

“I don’t want that.” She turns her hand over and he slides his palm against hers and laces their fingers together. She closes her eyes. There is nothing in her but the thud of her heartbeat and the sound of Jaime’s voice.

“It’s part of being a knight,” he says.

“I never... I never dared to hope for that either.”

“I can’t take it back.” Jaime sounds amused and she opens her eyes to look at him and he’s smiling, gently, and he has lost the whole battle from his face, every piece of it, looking at her. 

“I’m very tired,” she whispers, heart in her throat.

“Then sleep, my lady,” he says, equally quiet. 

“Please stay.” 

“Of course,” he says, and he leans forward, kisses her forehead, her cheek, and then her hand, held in his between them. 

“Oh,” she says, wondering if she’s already dreaming. 

“ _Oh_ ,” he teases, and she knows that she’s not. 

She kisses him, his mouth, her hand at his throat, and tension falls from his body like water and he melts against her like he has been waiting for this for a lifetime. Brienne can't... she can't think that it's true, but she kisses him and he melts and there's no lie in it. His hand moves from her arm to her shoulder to her neck, her jaw, into her hair, and he parts her lips with his tongue and she gasps against his mouth and pulls him closer and then pulls away with a start, breathless and flushed. He frowns. He chews on his lower lip and he frowns and he looks every bit like a petulant child. Brienne laughs, presses the backs of her hands to her warm cheeks, and laughs until he grins at her again. 

"Sleep," she says, firmly.   
  
"Yes, my lady," he says.

"And in the morning..." 

"In the morning, we shall see." 

Brienne blows out the last lantern and they get under the covers. There is no death in the room anymore, just lavender and steam and warm skin. It will be in their dreams, and in their bones and under their skin, for the rest of their lives, but it is gone for now. Jaime drapes his arm over Brienne's waist so he can pull her closer. Brienne tucks her hand under the collar of his shirt, so she can feel his heartbeat. She shuts her eyes against the soft darkness and there is fire there, and blood, and endless bone-deep cold, but then Jaime murmurs something, a mess of soft words and then her name, and it's gone. They will wake up together in the morning and put on their armour together and ready their swords, but winter feels close to ending. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! let me know what you think! this is the first jaime/brienne thing i've posted here in oh, four years, so i'm feeling a little rusty. we'll see. tbh i don't watch the show anymore but... the gifs of the last few episode have been... v interesting. so there you go. this was also posted on tumblr, [say hello if you'd like](https://oneangryshot.tumblr.com/)


End file.
